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Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

bloodknife.com

121–130 of 699 posts

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#121
I feel like this article/author wanted to connect a lot of things when the reality of the situation is far more simple.

People and young people have having less sex and less of everything because of poorer circumstances combined with an inability/reflectance to compromise.

Applied to housing this means that it is economically harder to afford a house so people stay home in their parents mcmansions. It's hard to afford/own a home because people don't want to buy a starter home so no one builds them. Finally it becomes very profitable if you have the cash to flip old houses thus quickly exhausting the supply of cheaper housing.

Speaking of living in places that could be called mcmansions, they are not bad to live in. While you could say a family as a unit is better off with a smaller 70s tri level, the mcmansions has more space so each individual feels like they get what they want. The main rooms remain clean and uncluttered while the messy lives of children are confined to bedrooms. The interior is vast enough to support guests and extended family, etc.

For movies, the consolidation of production means that having many movies is just competing with yourself. Producing a single film for 90% of the demographics is cheaper and makes more money. A decent percentage of America is quite religious and won't take there 3 12 year olds to anything containing sex. Thus most movies now don't contain it. Anything with sex becomes too taboo to view with the family which just reinforces this effect. The current wave of social justice also makes sex an untouchable topic both for movies and in real life.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#122
post #99
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This stresses me out as a young and not sexually active millennial. What do we do as a society to improve some of these trends? Do we want to? What do I do as an individual to change my individual situation? Why do we need to? The data shows that sex, drug use, etc., actually peaked with baby boomers. They were peak frivolity. It’s only because they created all the media for decades that we think those were good th…

How did boomers use more drugs? Since the boomer generation we had a crack epidemic, 2 heroine, 1 of those mixed with prescription opiates, and a non stop meth problem. Marijuana is legal in a bunch of states now. Psychedelics are having a revival. Mdma didn't even exist until recently and there have been two waves of rave culture

See: https://mobile.twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/121316563032673...

> At their peak in 1980 illegal drugs accounted for 5 % of total personal consumption expenditure in US. An astonishing figure corroborated by contemporary estimates that cocaine sales peaked at $35bn in 1980. Rachel Soloveichik @BEA_News

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I believe I have enough experience to tell if a girl is enjoying her time with me or not and go out of my way to make her feel good (I perform oral and am generally not defensive). When I say I look for 'permissive' girls I mean I look for girls that permit kissing and "sports fucking". I don't choke / slap / hair pull or whatever. If a girl gives signs that she doesn't enjoy sports-fucking I don't persist…

> Keeping a cheerful vibe while oppressed is hard to do. Millions of retail workers would disagree. And acting isn't even the oldest profession.

There is no need for acting, a girl would have lots of visitors and make similar amounts of money even if she wasn't cheerful, probably make more if she's the fast-fuck type.

You underestimate how horny some men are. One girl was telling me how it was 15 years ago.. men would line up in front of the apt building, go in, get a blowjob and a quick fuck for like 20min door-to-door, pay 25$ and leave. I don't know if she in particular didn't perform "girlfriend experience" type work or that's how they mostly were but trust me, there are more men who don't care about how happy the girl is and don't give a crap about her being cheerful or not.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your honesty. For the last several years I have supported a charity that helps women to escape this cycle of oppression in Romania. I've heard some of their stories, how difficult life is after they've found a way out. All I can say is that victims abound despite appearances.

Thank you. I believe I have enough experience to tell if a girl is enjoying her time with me or not and go out of my way to make her feel good (I perform oral and am generally not defensive). When I say I look for 'permissive' girls I mean I look for girls that permit kissing and "sports fucking". I don't choke / slap / hair pull or whatever. If a girl gives signs that she doesn't enjoy sports-fucking I don't persist…

I'm not suggesting you are doing anything morally wrong, but keep in mind that they may be faced with a situation where not only are they being pressured into this by specific people but there simply aren't good alternatives for them to make decent money.

Men tend to make more money than women. If a woman has a child or children to care for, sex work or exotic dancing etc al may be her only really viable option.

I will add that like with any industry, insiders will know some tricks and may have been coached on how to handle certain things. In the book Mayflower Madame, the escorts were explicitly told to act excited if a guy splurged at dinner and bought an entire bottle of champagne and not act like this was an everyday occurrence for them even though it might be the second or third time that day.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#125
post #90

Her take on the Starship troopers shower scene seems to be an american point of view. Nudity in an unisex shower isn't about flirting and sex for a european. Paul Verhoeven was naked too while filming it, because the actors felt uncomfortable at first.

I'm not american (Nor european) but I would still be extremely uncomfortable in an all-male shower let alone a unisex shower. I'm curious what you think the reasons that nudity is not as big of a deal to Europeans are.

I mean for one, a nude shower is the standard at pretty much all pools. Gender-separated most of the time, but still. From elementary school swimming lessons (which to be fair happen before pools open to the general public), to attending them as an adult, you drop all clothes when you enter and shower in one big room. Sure there might be partial walls for the extra shy, but most just don't care.

Same goes for gym showers. Maybe not the commercial ones, but def sport clubs or similar.

As a European (German), not sure what would be uncomfortable about that. The enormous gaps in US toilet stalls are far more terrifying ;-)

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#126
post #90

Her take on the Starship troopers shower scene seems to be an american point of view. Nudity in an unisex shower isn't about flirting and sex for a european. Paul Verhoeven was naked too while filming it, because the actors felt uncomfortable at first.

I'm not american (Nor european) but I would still be extremely uncomfortable in an all-male shower let alone a unisex shower. I'm curious what you think the reasons that nudity is not as big of a deal to Europeans are.

I don’t think there’s any complicated explanation; if you are never exposed to a particular state of being (e.g. public nudity) while growing up, it will probably be uncomfortable as an adult if you only have a normal level of openness to new experiences. I don’t think fear of nudity is much different from fear of flying or fear of fear of public speaking or whatever.

At least among my friend group, public nudity has never actually been a problem in culturally appropriate circumstances (eg at a public bathhouse or sauna while traveling through Japan or Scandinavia).

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#127
post #35

Is this a side effect of normalizing porn, that sexuality is more effectively partitioned? I once had a debate in an online forum about legalizing prostitution, and most participants were supportive of it. Then I asked the same group, what about legalizing partial prostitution, like a receptionist that also has sex with the boss as part of the job description. The participants all immediately switched to revulsion at…

In my eyes, the issue is that it the becomes the norm that receptionists need to have sex with their bosses and people who are only interested in the receptionist part are put in the position of needing to go into sex work or someone else getting the job they want.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#128
post #100

I think the lack of sex in Hollywood can be traced at least in part to the Chinese market. There's a lot of money in it and studios are more than happy to comply with CCP guidelines to get a share of that pie.

Came here to say this. Big budget Hollywood movies have to be internationally viable nowadays and that means conforming to the least common denominator of the target audiences. The result is movies that are palatable to the US and China and are utterly vacuous garbage.

Adults also don't tend to go to movies, so movies are made for kids. I wonder if Hollywood executives sit around the conference table wondering if a kid that doesn't speak English, doesn't live in N. America, will get the movie.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#129
post #27

This was a fun read, especially as someone who grew up with those 80s and 90s movies. That said, and as the author touches on, the action/super hero of today is a PG-13 one. Studios need to reach the widest audience possible to make the most money, so it's a safer bet. Sure, back in the day studios had the same imperative, but the licensed toy game was still young, so they didn't realise that maybe if they made Die H…

The only good Star Wars movie of the last umpteen years was Rogue One, where they weren’t trying to sell toys to children.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#130
post #102
post #27

This was a fun read, especially as someone who grew up with those 80s and 90s movies. That said, and as the author touches on, the action/super hero of today is a PG-13 one. Studios need to reach the widest audience possible to make the most money, so it's a safer bet. Sure, back in the day studios had the same imperative, but the licensed toy game was still young, so they didn't realise that maybe if they made Die H…

Having an R-rating didn't mean a lack of toys. "Alien" came out in 1979 to an R-rating. Yet a friend at the time (we were both 10) received a 12" (30cm) xenomorph action figure for Christmas.

Similarly, Deadpool figures galore.
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